
^^M^^^^ 



HON.J.L.M.CllRRY,LLO 



DELIVERED IH PJCHMOND^ 



On 22d October, 

BY REQUEST OF 





Class t^T^if i 



LESSONS OF THE YORKTOWNCENrTiLT 



la^maaa^ 



aV>--%^^" ,.-' 



HonJ.L M.CURRY, LLD. 



DELIVERED IN 



RICHMOND, 



On 22d October, 1881^ 



BY REQUEST OF 



THE CITY COUNCIL. 



RICHMOND : 

biSPATCH STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 






(^ 



-'^J^^tKT^S^ 



. • 



JA.^ 2 1904 
0. ofO, 



Richmond and the Yorktown Centennial, 



Desirous that Richmond should express, in some becoming manner, her 
interest in the Centennial of the surrender at Yorktown, the City Council at 
the April meeting adopted a resolution appointing a committee, and charging 
them with the duty of taking such steps as would ensure an appropriate cele- 
bration in the city. This committee, known as the Centennial Committee, 
was organized as follows; 

Judge Jno. A. Meredith, Chairman, 

J. T. Ellyson, Chas. L. Todd, M. T. Clarke. 

Chas. F. Taylor, Dr. Jno. S. Wellford, E.A.Saunders, 

Jno. a. Curtis, N. D. Hargrove. 

Ben. T. August, Secretary. 

At their July meeting the following resolutions were adopted by the two 
branches of the City Council, and approved by the Mayor, July 22, 1881 : 

Resolved, the Cowwon Council concurri?ig, That to the Council Committee 
on the Yorktown Centennial are hereby referred all matters pertaining to the 
proper celebration by the City of Richmond of the Yorktown Centennial. 
They shall have full power to make all arrangements for a proper display in 
this city during the Centennial ; to receive and suitably entertain distinguished 
guests and visiting organizations ; and do all else which in their opinion shall 
be necessary properly to sustain the dignity of this city during this important 
and interesting time. And they shall be authorized to form sub-committees 
from the citizens of this city, and fully carry out their plans. 

Resolved further, That the sum often thousand dollars, (|;io,ooo,) or so 
much as may be necessary, be appropriated for this purpose, and that the 
same be placed to the credit of tliis Committee, to be disbursed as other 
funds of the city are. 

The Council of Richmond having learned with pleasure that His Excellency, 
the President of the United States and his Cabinet, will visit the city, as the 
guests of the Virginia .State Agricultural .Society, during the Yorktown Cen- 
tennial; tiierefore be it 

Resolved, the Common Council concurring^. That the Council Committee on 
the Yorktown Centennial be and are hereby directed to extend to His Excel- 
lency, the President of the United States and his Cabinet, such a reception and 
attention during their stay in this city, as Will properly express the sentiments 
and feelings of our people, and as is befitting the exalted rank of our distin- 
guished visitors. 

Resolved, the Common Council concurring. That the Council Committee of 
the Yorktown Centennial be and they are hereby instructed to invite the rep- 



resentatives of tlie 1-Veiicli ( iovernment to visit the city during tlie celebration 
of the Yorktown Centennial, and bestow upon them such attention as their 
exalted rank and official station entitle them to at our hands. 

Resolved, the Coninwn Council concurring, That the Committee on Finance 
be and they are hereby instructed to place |5,ooo, or so much thereof as may 
be necessary, to the credit of the Council Committee on the Yorktown Cen- 
tennial, to be used in the manner indicated in the abf)ve resolutions, or for 
such other purposes as will carry out the objects for wliicli they were 
apiiointed. 

For weeks the Centennial Committee was busy arranging a programme. 
The city was gaily decorated, as never before in its history ; triumphal arches 
and statues were erected at many prominent points, and private citizens vied 
with the authorities in the variety and richness of their decorations. The 
formal commencement of the Richmond ceremonies, on Saturday, October 
22d, was a great success. The oration, by Hon. J. L. M. Curry, the Dispatch 
says, " was for appropriateness of design, excellence of literary work, and 
eloquence in delivery, well worthy to be classed with that of the Hon. Mr. 
VVinthrop at Yorktown." 

On Friday, October 21, the distinguished French and Germans, wlio had 
been visiting Yorktown as the guests of the Government t)f the United 
States, arrived in Richmond, and were met at the wharf by the committee 
and formally welcomed in a handsome speech by His Honor, Mayor W. C. 
Carrington. They then called upon His Excellency, Gov. F. W. M. Holliday, 
and afterwards visited points of interest in the city ; spent a few hours in the 
afternoon at the Virginia State Agricultural Fair, and at night were enter- 
tained at a grand reception given in their honor at the Allan mansion^ cor- 
ner 5th and Main streets. 

A large number of strangers visited the city during "centennial week." 
It is estimated that more than twenty thousand were in the city on the 
day of the " Grand Society and Trades Parade," and at least twenty-five 
thousand persons witnessed the display of fireworks in the Capitol Square 
on the night of October 26th. 

The Grand .Stand, from which the oration was delivered and all the reviews 
made, was located in the Capitol Square, on the north side of the capitol and 
opposite the statue of Stonewall Jackson. 

The committee selected the following street decorations, which were fur- 
nished by the well known artists, Messrs. R. T. Daniel, Jr., John A. Elder, 
and William L. Shepperd, of this city, and the well known public decorator 
of Washington, D. C, Henry T. Reh, who decorated the stand from which 
President Garfield delivered his inaugural address : 

Decoration No. 1 — Colonial arch, corner of Broad and First streets. 

Decoration No. 2— National arch, corner of Broad and .Seventh streets. 

Decoration No. 3— Norman arch, corner Broad and Twelfth streets. 

Decoration No. 4 — Beacon light, representing a woman holding a light in 
her hand. This was placed on Libby Hill, corner Twenty-ninth and Main 
streets. 

Decoration No. 5— A French design, corner Franklin and .Second streets. 

Decoration No. 6 — Statue of Liberty, corner of Main and l'"ifth streets. 



Decoration No. 7 — A g^rand welcome arch, corner of Main and Tvvelftii 
streets. 

The decorations on Main and Broad streets were illuminated at night with 
the electric light, which was used in our city for the first time. 

Capt. G. A. Ainslie was Chief of the Trades Parade Division. 

Capt. L. L. Bass was Chief Marshall of all the parades, and was assisted 
by the following members of his staff: James B. Pace, John M. Higgins, Col- 
onel William H. Palmer, A. Bargamin, Charles Talbot, George N. Wood- 
bridge, Colonel H. T. Douglas, Christian Unkel, R. Ferrandini, Miles Cary, 
General P. T. Moore, Colonel Archer Anderson, Moses Hutzler, Charles P. 
Stokes, Lewis D. Crenshaw, Jr., Henry T. Wickham, Major A. R. Courtney, 
Major A. W. Garber, Charles E. Boiling, Henry Bodeker, and Z. W. Pickrell. 

The reception committee in charge of the grand stand consisted of James 
D. Patton (chairman), William R. Trigg, H. H. Wilkins, Louis Pizzini, Sam- 
uel B. Witt, J. S. Crenshaw, Herman Boschen, Gus. Millhiser, Charles H. 
Simpson, John Hagan, Wyndham Meredith, Charles Brown, David Ainslie, 
Walter Upshur, James Augustine, William Preston, and Robert Curtis. 

A bureau for the reception and entertainment of visitors was organized, 
with headquarters at T210 Main street. 

The meetings of the Centennial Committee were usually held in the Chan- 
cery Court room. 

The following programme,, which was arranged by the Centennial Commit- 
tee, aflTorded much pleasure to our people, and the festivities of this centen- 
nial occasion will be long and pleasantly remembered by those who wit- 
nessed them. 



"^m^tmmmt^ 



MONDAY, OCTOBER 17TH, ioj4 A. M. 

Review by Governor Holliday, Mayor Carrington, and the Council of Ricli- 

mond, of the First Virginia Brigade, commanded by General 

Fitzhugh Lee; Thirteenth Regiment National Guards 

of New York, First Regiment National 

Guards of Connecticut, and 

other military. 



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2 P. M. 
Formal connnencement of the Richmond ceremonies. 



PROGRAMME. 
Mayor \V. C. Carrington, Presiding. 

MUSIC. 

Prayer by Bishop F. M. Whittle. 
MUSIC. 

Address of Welcome by the Mayor. 

MUSIC. 

Reading of the Declaration of Independence by Scholars of the Richmond 

High School. 

MUSIC. 

Oration by Hon. j. L. M. Curry. 

.MUSIC. 



MONDAY, OCTOBER 24TH, 8/2 P. M. 

Review by Governor Holliday, Mayor Carrington and tiie Council, of tiie 
Grand German Historical Tableau.x and Torch-Light Procession. 



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25TI1. 
Parade of the Manchester Ragnuiffins. 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26TH. 11;^ A. M. 

Review of the Grand Society and Trades Parade. 

8 P. M. 

Grand Concert and Display of Fire-works. 



ADDRESS, 



Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen of the Council, and Fellow- Citizens : 

The Centennial of the Surrender at Yorktown having been 
ah'eady so elaborately and grandly celebrated — France, Germany 
and the United States participating — by laying the corner-stone of fit 
monument, by music, and ode, and address, by military and naval 
display, by multitudes of visitors of various nationalties, it may be 
asked why this vast assembly, why this additional commemoration ? 
It has reference to the past and the present, and projects itself into 
the future. 

The inquiry has also been cynically made, why, after the national 
jubilee at Yorktown, Virginia or Richmond should undertake to 
supplement by a celebration confined to State or city limits? Few 
cities in the new world are more historic than Richmond. No 
occasion should ever be omitted of recording our gratitude to the 
patriots through whose wise and heroic etforts we are able to re- 
joice in a hundred years of self-government. No proper measures 
should be lett urmsed for awakening in the minds and hearts of 
the young a fervent love of country, and a firm determination, by 
every personal and civic virtue, to make perpetual what our fore- 
fathers began. Besides being the theatre of the final struggle, we 
have the testimony of an eminent living New Englander, that 
upon the action of Virginia, and her great and glorious sons, hung 
and hinged the destinies of our country at the period of the 
Declaration. "Without Virginia, without her Patrick Henry among 
the people, her Lees and Jefiersons in the forum, and her Wash- 
ington in the field, I will not say that the cause of American Lib- 
erty and American Independence must have been ultimately de- 
feated — no, no; there was no ultimate defeat for that cause in the 
decrees of the most High ! — but it must have been delayed, post- 
poned, perplexed, and to many eyes and to many hearts rendered 
semingly hopeless." 

In seeking to perform the high and honorable service which the 
City Council has required of me, I shall omit historic detail. 
The distinguished orator, chosen by the joint committee of Con- 



8 

gress, whose whole Hfe has been an illustration of private worth 
and public virtue, in an address combining literary culture, historic 
research, broad patriotism, many of the excellencies of Tacitus 
and Livy in its graphic descriptions and philosophic generaliza- 
tions, has done that work so well and completely, that hereafter 
Yorktown and the actors in the capitulation will be associated 
with the name of Winthrop. Be mine the task of gathering, for 
fresh meditation, some of the principles evolved by the Hevolu-' 
tionary struggle, to point out some of the dangers to the Kepublic, 
and to stimulate afresh a noble and unconquerable purpose to 
transmit not simply unimpaired, but enlarged and perfected^, the 
essential ideas of free representative institutions. 

The battle of Yorktown occurred at a critical period in our 
Revolutionary history. Fortunately, the French had come gal- 
lantly to our succor. The timel}' help rallied despairing spirits of 
the Colonists, and Virginia, from the contingencies of the war, 
became the focus of the struggle. To French and American com- 
manders it became apparent that here the decisive blow must be 
struck. Virginia thus became the pivotal point on which revolved 
hopes and prospects. Here energies were concentrated, armies 
and fleets converged, the lines of the enveloping circle gradually 
but surely contracted. Lord Cornwallis had previously written, 
" If we mean an oft'ensive war in America, we must abandon New 
York and bring our whole force into Virginia; we have there a 
stake to fight for, and a successful battle may give us America." 
Again, on the 18th of April, 1781, he says: "If, therefore, it 
should appear the interest of Great Britain to maintain what she 
already possesses and to push the war in the Southern provinces, 
I take the liberty of giving it as my o[>iiiion that a serious attempt 
upon Virginia would be the most solid plan." 

And he subsequently speaks of Virginia as " that powerful 
province not easily to be frightened by small British expeditions, 
or even by large ones." Writing to Sir Henry Clinton from 
Byrd's plantation, north of the James river, on May 26, 1781, 
Lord Cornwallis says : " I shall now proceed to dislodge Lafayette 
from Richmond." And he concludes : <' I shall take the liberty of 
repeating that if oflensive war is intended, V^irginia appears to me 
the only province in which it can be carried on and in which there' 
is a stake." 



9 

This movement of Cornwallis, in course of time, led to the con- 
centration of both armies, and the Old Dominion, scarred so oft in 
her life by hoof of horse and tread of soldiery, sheltered friend 
and foe upon her sacred bosom. Rhe holds Yorktown and she 
holds Appomattox — scenes of the two most noted and fruitful 
capitulations of this continent and of the last century. As from 
all sections we gathered at Yorktown on the 19th and here again 
to-day, let us bury all animosities and go back to the period of the 
surrender on the I'eninsula and, with increased devotion, re- 
dedicate ourselves to the principles secured by the Revolution and 
our united country to the preservation of all that was won in the 
contest of 1781. As the whole world met in common sympathy 
at Garfield's death; as Queen and royal family, and ministry and 
press and pulpit, and people of Great Britain sat among the chief 
mourners in our bitter hour of national desolation, we should rise 
above all national prejudices and hates, and consecrate all powers 
and possibilities for the brotherhood of man, for the rights of 
humanity. Daniel Webster, in one of the most beautiful similes 
of the English language, spoke of the morning drum beat follow- 
ing the sun, keeping company with the hours and circling the 
earth daily with one unbroken strain of the martial airs of Eng- 
land. So in our late bereavement, for a nobler purpose, in proof 
of the kinship of the human family, the electric telegraph — 
making earth as sensitive as the globe of the sorceress of Thalaba — 
thrilled with million messages of tenderness, and bound all tribes 
and peoples and tongues in an unbroken circle of love and sym- 
pathy. 

Many of the best and truest of England's sons deplored the 
royal infatuation and ministerial folly which inflicted wrongs on 
America, and justified the resistance of the Colonies. Pitt said 
the war against us was '* conceived in injustice and nurtured in 
folly," and that the ineificient victories were " obtained over men 
struggling in the holy cause of liberty." Great Britain, in the war 
waged against her Colonies, forgot herself, her true interests, her 
ancient principles, the instructive lessons of her own grand his- 
tory. Gladstone said that our revolution was, in the main, like 
the revolution of 1688, " a vindication of liberties inherited and 
possessed." A recent English writer says, " the war of Indepen- 
dence was virtually a second English civil war. The ruin of the 
2 



10 

American cause would have been also the ruin of the constitil' 
tional cause in England ; and a patriotic Englishman may revere 
the memory of Patrick Henry and George Washington not less 
justly than the patriotic American." 

The Declaration of Independence, just read so eliectively by 
pupils of the High 8chool, was an assertion and a prophecy, 
Yorktown was a verification and a fulfillment. The one was 
inchoate, contingent, uncertain, anticijiatory ; the other, after 
long, weary years of hope deferred, bitter disappointments, harass- 
ing anxieties, meditated treason, diminishing resources, depreci- 
ating currency, contracting territory and painful reverses, was 
glad, joyous, triumpliant completion. The pledge was redeemed, 
and the impoverished Colonies, smitten and wounded of the 
archers, emerged from the baptism of fire and blood, and the 
dove of peace alighted on the head' of the new States as they took 
their place among the free and independent sovereignties of the 
world. As the seers of a century ago tried with straining e.yes to 
penetrate the future and read the history, how little was under- 
stood or conjectured of the magnificent destiny that awaited the 
infant Republic. Our fathers did not anticipate results which nei- 
ther legend, nor fable, nor myth adumbrated. Bells, bonfires, 
illuminations, thanksgivings, multitudinous rejoicings, testified 
their hopes and gratitude; but they built in the new Government 
wiser than they knew. Products of collective action are often 
beyond the voluntary and conscious designs of individual actors. 
Structures, like languages and civilizations, that excite wonder 
and puzzle the historical investigator, were built by men who did 
not conceive, even dimly, the permanence and glory of their work. 
Reluctant as was the royal assent to the treaty of peace, the 
separation has been highly beneficial to Great Britain. The Uni- 
ted States are more profitable to her than are any of her colo- 
nies. For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1881, total exports of 
merchandise Irom the United States, $902,377,346 ; total exports 
to the united kingdom of Great Bntain and Ireland, $481,135,- 
078. Through a " colossal trade, each makes contributions to the 
wealth and comfort of the other." This eldest born of England's 
children, unexampled in " the rapidity and force" of her develop- 
ment, has set the example of self-government, and Great Britain, 
seeing the success, is, " by judicious devolution of governmental 



11 

functions" upon her Colonies, lightening the cares of her Parlia- 
ment. One of her historians has said that the surrender at York- 
town " modified, for all times to come, the connection between 
every Colony and every parent State." America illustrates the 
principles of free government, and gives to them, and to the 
matchless common law% wider scope and larger application than 
they have had elsewhere. " Ko parallel in all the world," says the 
greatest of British statesmen, "to the case of that prclilic mother, 
wlio has sent forth her innumerable children over all the earth, to 
be the founders of half a dozen Empires." Superlative in the 
world's eye and in history among these children, he adds, is the 
American Republic; "certainly the wealthiest of all the nations," 
with " a natural base for the greatest continuous Empire ever 
established by man." If our Revolution was a vindication of in- 
herited liberties and an evolution from antecedent English germs ; 
if it was specially conservative, and made provision for the future 
in conformit}' with what had been claimed as the birth-rights of 
British subjects ; if the representative system had its genesis in 
England ; then it may be asked, why the rebellion and the seven 
years of bloody strife? The answer has been partially given. 
England forgot her own principles, or limited their application to 
England and Scotland. George III and Lord North were repre- 
sentatives of much ignorance, passion, pride, perverseness and 
insolence, and of an ambition to have some below who could be 
called our subjects, our Colonies, our dependencies. (See Burke's 
Bristol speech.) The jypomen of America resented this mental 
attitude and arbitrary assumptions of foreign governors, and had 
a juster appreciation of what was at stake. Taxes, it is true, were 
not heavy ; large liberties were possessed and freely exercised, and 
our Revolution, in an unprecedented degree, was one of principle. 
Our ancestors went to war for a preamble. Historians, in the 
mellow radiance of after years, often attribute to hatred of arbi- 
trary power or romantic attachment to liberty what was prompted 
by selfish, or pecuniary, or ambitious motives. The Revolution of 
1688, a glorious epoch in English history, a white day in the cal- 
endar of popular enfranchisement, we now know had much in it 
that was selfish and base. Men zealously promoted it who, all 
their life long, had preached and practised cruelest intolerance and 
abject non-resistance to 

"The right divine of kings to govern wrong." . 



12 

Ours was exceptionally in defence of abstractions. The sharp and 
bitter contention was prolonged at immense sacrifice, and with a 
heroic display of patience, fortitude, coin*a.oe and devotion to lib- 
erty, until loyalty to trans-Atlantic Sovereigns was effaced, and 
independence and separation became the only possible terms of 
settlement. 

The surrender at Yorktown brought peace and the full recogni- 
tion of the independence of the iStates. The exigencies of the 
war had demonstrated the looseness and inefRciency of the Articles 
of Confederation, (which by a severe irony were to unite the colo- 
nies " in a perpetual union,") and the necessity of a stronger gov- 
ernment with better defined powers. Hence, a new government 
was formed, a democratic, representative federal republic, the 
States confederating and establishing a government under a writ- 
ten constitution. The British government " proceeded from the 
womb and long gestation of progressive history ; " ours was " the 
most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain 
and purpose of man." Much, of course, was borrowed. The 
framers of our Constitutional Republic were no Utopian dreamers, 
but they wisely extracted the philosophy of history, availed them- 
selves of the victories wrung from the unwilling hands of royal 
and ecclesiastical despots, sagaciously incorporated into the frame- 
work of the new government the principles wrought out by the 
Sidneys, the Russells, the Vanes, the Miltons, the liampdens of the 
mother country. There were, however, newer applications of old 
truths, clearer definitions of rights, more guarded security against 
some wrongs, better protection of minorities, stricter limitations 
upon the grants of power, and the clear, unmistakable proclama- 
tion that government derives all power from the consent of the 
governed. As President Lincoln epigrammatically expressed it, 
ours is " a government of the people, by the [leople, and for the 
people." Ours is the most luminous and beneficent examjtle of 
self-government. (A distinguishing principle is the self-govern- 
ment of separate, politicah communities which, retaining their au- 
tonomy, their self-hood, are yet united for international and for 
some other general purposes in a common government. Our 
Union is not of individuals in the aggregate, as a totality, but of 
States as political organisms. The preservation of State autonomy, 
of separate and equal political communities, having the functions 



and departments of free governments, and yet nnder a central 
government with power to prevent dissolution, was a discovery in 
politics that makes free institutions possible in and over a territory 
flanked by remote oceans. While the General Government deals 
with foreign nations, and performs certain duties not safely lelt to 
local communities, the States discharge the larger number of gov- 
ernmental duties, and to them the citizens look for the guaranty 
of the rights and obligations growing out of the relations of hus- 
band and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, teacher and 
pupil, employer and employed. It is not easy in creations of art 
or in nature to find apt similitudes expressive of the relations of 
the General Government and the States. There stands before us 
a magnificent monument of granite and bronze, one of the finest 
works of art adorning modern capitals. On the broad and dura- 
ble foundations, from a common level, arises a group of figures. 
On the lower plane are Jefferson, Marshall, Henry, Mason, Lewis 
and Nelson — Virginians all — tj'pes of Statesmanship, of eloquence, 
of judicial and political wisdom, of adventure, each distinct and 
individualized. On the same base, but lifted higher, sits proudly 
erect on graceful charger the peerless and immortal, veneration 
paid to whom, until time shall be no more, " will be a test of the 
progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue." So our 
States, equal, separate, grand, standing on a basis of necessary 
equality, have, springing out of them, a part of them, yet occupy- 
ing a higher plane, with broader sweep and wider vision, the Federal 
Government, revered, honored, loved by the States as those men 
honored, revered, and loved their immortal chief, the commander 
of the allied forces at Yorktown. 

Under this local self-government we claim to have made most 
successful advances "towards the true aim of rational politics." 
Full scope is given to self-reliance and self-action. Self-help is en- 
couraged instead of slavish and enervating dependence upon gov- 
ernment. Centralization is mistrusted. This principle finds ex- 
pression and outcome in municipal, communal, local governments, 
(in 1870 there were 2,164 organized counties, besides towns and 
cities,) as well as in more difficult and complicated State govern- 
ments, and thus public virtue, independence, self-mastery, educa- 
tion in civic duties, production and training of men as magistrates 
and legislators, are evoked. 



14 

IIow far the oniinoiis detects in Parliamentary government in 
England, the dead-locks in the House of Commons, the success of 
the obtitructive policy of the malcontents, the complaints about 
waste of time and garrulity in debate, the conferring of "urgency" 
powers upon Speaker and Cabinet, the neglect of needed legisla- 
tion and the afi'ccting to legislate upon a thousand local and 
administrative details, are attributable to the want of local govern- 
ments, this is not the time nor place to consider. Conjoined with 
and auxiliary to this self-government are publicity of executive, 
judicial and legislative action, and liberty of thought, speech and 
press, which are the vital air of freedom. 

Another distinguishing feature of our American institutions, 
the outgrowth of Yorktown and of national independence, is the 
recognition and development of the individual man in equality 
of personal rights and privileges. In European and Asiatic 
countries the individual man is in subjection to the State, and 
treatment of subject by sovereign or government is often regarded 
as ultimate, inviolable, irreversible. Alan is the servant of the 
State, lives for the State. In America the reverse is the accepted 
truth. The Government is for the peojile, not for the few, but for 
the whole people, is subject to them, bringing its ministry to them, 
and duty, and loyalty, and patriotism, and personalit}', tlourish 
most when they are in harmony with the power and authority of 
the State. This does not mean that the people may rule when and 
where and how they please. Liberty and law do not antagonize. 
Government, as a handmaid of freedom, as a means of securing 
personal liberty, is a civil organism with established law, and order, 
and authority; and the spontaneous, irregular, undisciplined 
clamor of the populace is not the will of the people, for their will 
finds legitimate expression and becomes authoritative, only when 
uttered and ascertained in strictest accordance with pre-ordained 
forms and methods. We vote as we please, in subordination to 
law and eternal verities, and there the right ends. The will of 
the majority, fairly, legally, constitutionally expressed, is the will 
of the people. An officer thus chosen, or a law properly enacted, 
is our officer or our law as fully as if every man in the Union had 
voted for the one or the other. If any man can say that the officer 
not voted for is not his officer, the law not approved is not his law. 



15 

then the Republic, quoad hoc, is overthrown ; there is disintegration 
of society, dissolution of government. 

The ethics of Nihilism, the precedents of Guiteau and Booth, the 
evangel of -'the dynamite and the dagger," as remedy for iinde- 
sired laws and officers, for supposed personal wrongs or political 
evils, is the annihilation of law, the enthronement of anarchy, the 
subversion of the essential principles of free and popular institu- 
tions. 

The basal idea of our free representative institutions is the su- 
premacy of man, as man, over the accidents of birth, or race, or 
fortune. As the Sabbath was made for man, so are civil institu- 
tions, governments, rulers. We have no class distinctions, no 
titled nobility, no hereditary privileges, no political discriminations. 
Garfield and Johnson, in their careers, illustrate the possibilities of 
man in this country. Mankind have rights as well as duties. The 
arrogant and insolent aphorism to the contrary notwithstanding, 
the people with us have " something to do with the laws" beyond 
*' obeying them." The divine right of kings and of the " better 
born" is repudiated. We know no subjects. All are citizens, 
equal in the eye of the law. We accept no doctrine of official 
irresponsibility. We recognize no genealogical tables as proof of 
fitness, or as claim to public position, and especially no plea of 
genealogy as bar to punishment for violation of truth and justice 
and honor. Freedom is not dependent on, nor derived from, pre- 
scription, revolution or force. It rests upon absolute, immutable 
rights. Its title deeds come from Jehovah. " Justice and liberty 
have neither birth nor race, youth nor age." A "pedigree of 
freedom," as if tve had a right to freedom only because our ances- 
tors were free, is ignoble and ignominious. These ideas are of the 
essence of our institutions, and have had here a more man-em- 
bracing application than ever before. 

Another consequence of our union of States was reciprocal free 
trade. Although wages, products and climate are as various as 
those of widely remote naions, yet the products of each State find 
read}' ingress and egress throughout the whole territory, free from 
tax and inhibition. This unrestricted commerce, unarrested by 
border annoyances and inquisitorial examinations, has been a bond 
of interest and fraternity, constantly growing in strength, creating 
ever increasing benefits, and uniting more closely in fellowship 



16 

States and peoples. The local laws in Minnesota and Texas, 
Maine and California, and the agricultural, and iiuinufactunng, 
and mineral products, are more divxM\se in some respects than those 
of many foreign nations, and yet the advantages of this free com- 
merce are universally admitted, and exert a most salutary social, 
commercial and political influence. 

Separate State governments and absolute religious liberty are 
probably the most characteristic distinctions of American institu- 
tions. The claim over religious convictions and conduct had for 
centuries been asserted by governments of every name, and en- 
forced by pains and penalties, confiscations, imprisonment, torture, 
and death. The unwillingness to yield this tyrannical grasp, hurtful 
both to churches and governments, seems to Americans of the lat- 
ter part of the 19th century most strange, and to-day the United 
States is the only government in the world where soul-freedom is, 
or has ever been, guaranteed in its absoluteness, without tithes, 
without aid to any sect, without ecclesiastical discriminations. 
This is our undisputed and unshared contribution to the science of 
politics We had no precedent, no example, for this greatest and 
most glorious achievement in American history; and marvellous 
as has been the progress of religious toleration in England, France, 
Germany, Mexico, Spain, Austria and Italy, v^'e must still pray and 
labor that what has done so much for purity and spirituality of re- 
lio-ion here, and for intellectual and moral awakening and advance- 
ment, may become an integral part of every human government. 

In one hundred years, what progress ! Imagination and lan- 
o-uage fail to conceive and express our unrivalled growth 
From thnieen States, with a sparse population of 3,000,000 skirt- 
ing the Atlantic coast, and an area of 827,844 square miles, we 
have grown to thirty-eight States and nine territories, with a popu- 
lation of 50,000,000 and an area of 3,603,844 square miles. Our 
tonnage is over 4,000,000 tons. We have about 99,000 miles of 
railroad and over 700,000 miles of telegraphic wires. Receipts 
from customs in 1791, S4,339,473.( 9, and in 1880, from customs, 
$186,522,064 60, and from internal revenue, $124,609,373.92. 

In 1879, we had 207 normal schools, with 40,029 pupils; 1,236 
schools for secondary instruction, with 108,734 pupils ; 207 schools 
for superior instruction of women, with 24,605 pupils ; 364 universi- 
ties and colleges, with 60,011 pupils, and eighty-three institutions for 



17 

deaf and dumb and blind. In States and Territories, in 1880, we 
had enrolled in public schools, 9,424,086 pupils; 366,144 in pri- 
vate schools, and a public school expenditure of $78,201,522. 
Free universal education is the aim and aspiration of every State 
and ever}' community ; and is the most forceful and fruitful idea 
of modern times. 

Independence, virtually recognized at Yorktown, introduced us 
into the family of nations, and started in this virgin world a new 
government. The growth in material prosperity, in creation and 
development of industries, the enlargement of territorial area, the 
free inter-State exchange of products, the work done for educa- 
tion, have been referred to. The abolition of primogeniture and 
of hereditary distinctions and privileges, voluntaryism in religion, 
equality of citizens in the eye of the law, liberalizing the law 
of nations, making the sea a highway and free to naviga- 
tion of all vessels, establishing the right of expatiation, opening 
dooi's for immigrants and citizenizing them, making America an 
asylum for the oppressed, are among the direct beneiits of our 
national existence, which tongue and pen have often described. 
The United States was among the first to declare the slave-trade 
piracy, and to use vigorous and effective measures for its suppres- 
sion. The abolition of negro slavery, which all thoughtful states- 
men regarded as a " problem full of terrible perplexity," is the 
stupendous social and political revolution of this century — out- 
weighing in character and consequences such crucial changes in 
histor}' as tlie consolidation of the German Empire, the unification 
of Italy, or the emancipation of serfs in Russia. However men 
may differ in opinion as to the methods of abolition and some mea- 
sures growing out of the act, I venture to affirm there is not a 
man nor a woman in this vast audience, gathered near the statue 
of Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate Christian soldier, and in the 
very shadow of the building where the Confederate Congress sat 
and deliberated, who does not rejoice that the negroes are free. 
I make the additional assertion that the South is sohd in cordially 
giving and guaranteeing to the black man, in unstinted measure, 
every personal and political right which Constitution and laws 
confer. I must be pardoned for making bold to affirm that there 
is not an honest Virginian who does not re-echo the doctrine of 
uniutimidated ballot, honest elections, and a fair count of all legal 



18 

votes. All assertions to the contrary are the spectres of excited 
imaginations, or the falsification of corrupt partisanship. 

The indirect influence of the Kepublic has been most potential. 
With a people, not strictly Anglo-Saxon, hut the fusion of Teu- 
tonic, Celtic, and other races, we have shown the stability 
and excellence of popular government ; have demonstrated, not 
by coercive intervention, nor aggressive propagandism, but by 
the omnipotent influence of successful example, that the people, 
under proper restrictions, can be safely trusted with political 
power; that standing armies and constructive treason are not 
necessary to hold the governed in subjection ; and thus noiselessly 
the leaven of freedom is permeating all civilized governments. 
Bastilles are demolished, public opinion is consulted and respected, 
civil and religious despotisms are toi)pling to the ground. His- 
tory assumes a new form and becomes, not simply a record of the 
acts of rulers and hierarchies, but an account of manners, amuse- 
ments, opinions and deeds of the people. Politics has become a 
new science more eidarged in its applications. Changes, almost 
amounting to revolutions, marking constitutional, social, intellec- 
tual and moral advances, go on unperceived at the moment and 
unrecorded, until a monarchy is transformed into a Kepublic, or a 
government of the House of Ccmimons; prerogatives, once the 
source of power, quietly fall into abeyance, and abuses, long re- 
garded as vested rights and irremediable, lapse into desuetude. 
Unquestionably, our Kepublic has ameliorated the condition of 
man ; has given a forward impulse to political' and human free- 
dom l)y an example of rational, conservative, regulated liberty ; 
has made reforms in other governments possible and ii(ivisal)le, 
and has left no loop to hang a just doubt upon as to the excellence 
of free government. It has been a political Pharos, and its health - 
giving, hope-impaV'ting light has illumined many habitations of 
cruelty. 

These evidences of prosperity and progress enhance our re- 
sponsibilities. With success come dangers. The perils that 
environ us are neither few nor feeble. Nations, like men, must 
have their conflicts, their sacriflces. We are to guard, not against 
aristocracy, nor Caisarism, nor standing armies; our foes are from 
within. Frequent appeals to the sources of power keep up a con- 
tinual agitation, and periodically we are disturbed, if not endan- 



19 

gered, bj the excitement, the passions, the loss of time, the cor- 
rupt use of money, the complicated and tyrannous party machin- 
ery, of a Presidential election. The immense patronage connected 
with the office, its influence in securing a renomination, the untold 
evils immediately and indirectly the progen^y of the pestiferous 
maxim announced in 1883, that " To the victors belong the 
spoils," make a series of perils demanding consummate and 
courageous statesmanship. The death of Harrison and the assas- 
sination of Garfield are traceable to the spoils system. The- entire 
sweep of the civil service on the accession of a new party or a 
chief magistrate is in painful and disastrous contrast to the prac- 
tice in England, where removals and appointments are limited to 
a few score of persons, although the ministers are " more sharply 
severed from one another in principle and practice than are our 
successive presidents." 

Keform in the civil service overshadows a hundred questions 
which inflame popular zeal and are made shibboleths of party 
loyalty. Such has been the power of caucus, the influence of self- 
ishnessi, cupidity and ambition, that the practice in the. better days 
has been reversed, and a system has fastened itself upon the govern- 
ment which no intelligent man would think, for a moment, of 
applying to his private affaii-s. Near 100.000 olHces are in the 
control of the President; many of these are of a subordinate or 
minor character. The duties are clerical or administrative, and, 
in the ordinary range of their performance, politics has no place. 
Fidelity, honesty, capacity, experience, should be the tests of 
appointment. The positions are trusts for the public good. Con- 
tinuance in office, promotion, increased pay, should be determined 
by capacity and fidelity. Under a vicious system, partisan zeal, 
cleverness in manipulating votes, servility to a chief, are the con- 
siderations that enter into appointments. Dominance of party is 
the end in view. The ins are in a struggle with the outs. This 
spoils system destroys manly independence, makes incumbents 
students of political weather-wisdom. Salaries are assessed for an 
electioneering fund, and the civil service is degraded into a means 
of corrupting the ballot-box. Inefficiency, neglect, wasteful ex- 
penditure, higher taxes, are the fruits. Politics is reduced from a 
noble science to a dirty scramble for " pubhc plunder." The best 
men stay away from party conventions ; cliques, factions, rings, 



20 

" bosses," with tools, henchmen and claqueurs, become the con- 
trolling forces in the administration of government. All admit 
and deplore the evil, and it will require Herculean efforts — the 
combination of the good and wise of all parties — to expel or cure 
it, and thus save free institutions. 

Suffrage, so universal, is an appalling peril. It lowers the quali- 
fications of officers, makes bribery, corruption, demagogism, pan- 
dering to the passions of the people, eas}', poisons government at 
its fountain head — the intelligent will of the people — and remits 
to ignorance and vice what should be the sacred trust of intelli- 
gent and upright patriotism. " We have no standard by which to 
measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance 
and vice in the citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in 
the suffrage." The illiteracy of the voters is such a menace to 
free institutions that the supreme national question of to-day is 
adequate provision in aid of, and in subordination to, State sys- 
tems for the education of the masses. 

The excess of democracy, or misapprehension of the character 
of our institutions and of the need of regulated liberty, some- 
times induces mobs to take into their own violent hands what 
belongs to organized authority. Subordination of law and order 
to popular passion, never justifiable except where a revolution 
would be, is the concentration of executive, judicial and legislative 
departments in the hands of a conscienceless, heady multitude. 
Better the assassin should escape unwhipt of justice, than have 
the overthrow of civil authority ; better the unpunished crime of 
one man than the audacious crimes of a thousand. 

There is a tendency to discriminate betwixt personal and political 
integrity. The distinction is untenable. A dishonest politician is 
a dishonest man. God's laws and man's laws should run in paral- 
lel lines. The ethical quality is never safely absent from public 
life. Conscience should rule in legislature and at ballot-box. 
Principles of truth, honor, justice and right are eternal. Violated 
faith obstructs industrial progress and the public weal, for " the 
perfidy of one man, or of a million of men, is as nothing com- 
pared with the perfidy of a nation." National shame will cling 
like the poisoned shirt of Nessus, and "the price of it will be to 
children an intolerable burden." A single act of deliberate dis- 
honor projects its baleful shadow into and over the distant future, 



21 

lowers the national conscience and the standard of right, and cor- 
rupts the body politic. The moral force of the public, and of in- 
dividual citizens, should be in alliance with civic conduct. We 
may outlive an incompetent officer, a bad law, an erroneous de- 
cision, an inexpedient policy ; we cannot escape the retribution 
which surely follows a violation of the unchangeable laws of God. 
To quote again from the martyred Garfield, whose words of wis- 
dom have special weight and significance : " The people of the 
United States can afibrd to make any sacrifice for their country, 
and the history of the last war is a proof of their willingness, but 
the humblest citizen cannot atford to do a mean or dishonorable 
thing to save even this glorious Kepublic." 

Despite these formidable dangers, the outlook is hopeful and 
inspiring. Whatever may have been the errors and failures, how- 
ever sincerely we may deplore the corruptions in public places, 
bribery in elections, purchases of legislator, the prevalence of in- 
temperance, the disregard of family authority, the rejection of the 
religion and the teachings of Christ, — the governments. Federal and 
State, have, in large measure, promoted prosperity and happi- 
ness, and there is a solid substratum of good sense, sound princi- 
])le, true patriotism, loyalty to God, to which we can appeal to save 
from threatening evils. We must rise above the material and 
utilitarian to the realization of the ideal. The true strength of a 
nation is not in its industries, in agriculture, commerce, mining 
and manufacturing, for imperial possessions may drag us down 
and be factors of evil, if we reach not upwards, continuously and 
bravely, to the working out of a higher civilization and a nobler 
and purer government. Yorktown in itself is nothing; St. John's 
church-house is nothing; battle-fields and birth places are nothing, 
except as " historic events, heroic deeds, sublimed memories" have 
invested them with associations that kindle loftier aspirings, and 
stimulate to grander deeds. Places are immortalized and glorified 
by deeds of heroism, pregnant beliefs, truthful and seed-bearing 
utterances. Our government and institutions have had " a century 
of trial under pressure of exigencies caused by an expansion unex- 
ampled in point of rapidity and range." Their survival and suc- 
cess prove the " sagacity of the constructors, and the stubborn 
strength of the fabric." We are not concerned simply with the 
past. Our institutions may be the daughter of the past ; we may 



22 

jiistl}' glory in the achievements of men who seem to have been 
inspired for their beneficent and far-reaching work, but society is 
" the mother of the future." We inherit not that we may hoard or 
bury, but that we may increase and transmit forces that will find 
in improved and more beneficent institutions not perishable but 
permanent forms. Man is to create higher civilizations. There 
should be an ever-increasing progressiveness in mastering and 
utilizing the forces of nature, developing potentialities of the liu- 
man mind, conquering appetites and tendencies of evil, imposing 
restraints and discipline of virtue, solving the problems of human 
good. The nation lives for the race. When genius embodies 
itself in forms of government, codes of laws, it is for all peoples 
and all ages, A victory achieved over prejudice, or bigotry, or 
ignorance, or fanaticism, or falsehood, or wrong, is for humanity. 
America reversed the precedents of ages; unlocked the doors of 
tyranny, and turned loose the immured captives ; wrought out the 
great problem of free government, dimly seen and predicted by 
the prophets of liberty ; allied liberty and law, loyalty and order, 
government and people, activity of personal freedom and sub- 
jection to established authority ; and tlie conquest is for the op- 
pressed and the despotism-cursed of all nationalities and all times. 
Egypt may have her imperishable pyramids ; on Euphrates may be 
sad memorials of decayed splendor ; perished dynasties may come 
and go in the kaleidoscope of memory ; but the conquests of liberty, 
victories achieved for humanity, become ideas universalized, im- 
mortalized, that lift up those degraded by sin, and crushed by 
tyranny, and unify them into an exalted brotherhood. 



-€'£^ H ^»- 



fi 



>0VtXMW!.iW 



Mayor — W. Cv Carrington. 
City Attqrney^-A. M. Keiley. 
Treasurer — S. C. Greenhow. 
Clerk to Treasurer — D. A. CardwelL 
Auditor — ^James B. Royster. 
Clerk to Auditor — E. J. Warren. 
City Engineer — W. E. Cutshaw. 
Assistant City Engineers — S. E. Bates, 

Jackson Bolton. 
Clerks to City Engineer — S. B. Jacobs, 

Fran. T. Bates. 
Superintendent of Public Schools — 

James H. Peay. 
Police Justice — D. C. Richardson. 
Clerk to Police Justice — E. B. White. 
Superintendent of Gas Works — John 

H. Knowles. 
Foreman and Clerk of Gas Works — 

W. C. Adams. 

Bill Clerk— J.J. Royster. 
<rias Inspector — William P. Knowles. 

Assistants — ^John H. Richardson, 

W. W. Wood, H. G. Miller, J. E. 

Batkins, John A. Tyree, Emmet 

Hill. 
Superintendent of Water Works^ 

James L. Davis. 
Assistant Superintendent of Water 

Works— J. B. Hill. 
Chief of Police — ^John Poe, Jr. 
Surgeon of Police--Dr. C. W. P. Brock. 
Clerk to Chief of Police — Wallace 

Washington. 
Chief of Fire Department — George 

Watt Taylor. 
First Assistant Engineer Fire Depart- 
ment — ^J. F. Wingfield. 
Second Assistant Engineer — A. L. 

Fuqua. 
Third Assist 't Engineer — E. T. Snead. 
Superintendent of Almshouse— Chas. 

P. Bigger. 
Assistant Superintendent of Alms- 
house — W.J. Epps. 
Surgeon of Almshouse— Dr. J. .S. D. 
Cullen. 



Matron of Almshouse — Mrs. Lucy J. 

Macon. 
City Clerk — Edward C. Howard. 
Sergeant-at-Arms of City Council- 
Benjamin T. August. 
Engineer James River Improvement— 

H. D. Whitcomb. 
Clerk of First Market— N. B. Hill. 
Clerk of Second Majjket — George 

Timberlake. 
High Constable — E. Holzinger. 
City Sergeant — N. M. Lee. 
Commissioner of the Revenue--Robt. 

B. Munford. 

Assistant Commissioners of the Rev- 
enue — Edward Gray, H. H. Wil- 
kins, John W. Wilks, and Chas. 
W. Goddin. 

City Collector — A. R. Woodson. 

Depuites-J. E. Riddick and W. H. 
Talman. 

Grain Measurer — ^^john Finnerty. 

Inspector of Carts and W^agons — B. 

C. Galloway. 

Sealer of Weights and Measures — ■ 
A. G. Talman. 

Ganger — Richard Fox. 

Fish Inspector — Thomas A. Brander, 

Harbor Master— R. H. Styll. 

Coroner — Dr. W. H. Taylor. 

Deputy Coroner — Dr. Christopher 
Tompkins. 

Sheriff— John W. Wright. Deputies— 
P. P. and Louis Winston. 

Superintendent of Fire-Alarm Tele- 
graph — R. M. J. Paynter. 

Board of Police Commissioners — W. 
C. Carrington, (Mayor,) ex-officio 
President. Members of the Board : 
Monroe Ward, John Enders ; Jef- 
ferson Ward, James W. Shields ; 
Jackson Ward, John H. Gresham ; 
Marshall Ward, R. L. Brown ; Clay 
Ward, E. T. D. Myers; Madison 
Ward, P. H. Mayo. Clerk, E. B> 
White, 



24 
THE CITY COUNCIL. 



Board of Aldermen — The Board of Aldermen is composed of eighteeh 
members, three from each ward in the city. Hon. John A. Meredith, of Madi- 
son Ward, is President. The following are the other members of the Board, 
which meets on the second Monday in each month, at 7 P. M. The list also 
shows when their terms e.xpire: C. R. Barksdale, of Clay, (188;>) ; L. L. Bass, 
of Monroe, (1884); R. G. Cabell, of Jefferson, (1882); L. D. Crenshaw, Jr., of 
Madison, (1884); Josiah Crump, of Jackson, (1884); J. C. Dickerson, of Mar- 
shall, (1882) ; O. Gasser, of Jackson, (1882) ; F. T. Glasgow, of Monroe, (1882) ; 

E. D. Kelly, of Clay, (1882); John Rankin, of Jackson, (1884); E. A. Saunders, 
of Marshall, (1884); William H.Scott, of Jefferson, (1882); James C. Smith, 
of Jefferson, (1884); Charles L. Todd, of Clay, (1884); Louis Wagner, of Madi- 
son, (1882); Johns. Wellford, of Monroe, (1884); William H. Williams, of Mar- 
shall, (1882); John A. Meredith, of Madison, (1884). 

Common Council. — The Common Council is composed of thirty members, 
five from each ward. Ma.xwell T. Clarke, of Madison Ward, is President, 
The Common Council meets on the first Monday in each month, at 5. P. M. 
The following are the other members of the body: T. P. Campbell, of Clay; 
W. A. O. Cole, of Jefferson ; John A. Curtis, of Marshall; Charles T. Davis, 
of Madison; T. Wiley Davis, of Marshall; L. S. Edwards, of Clay; T. H. 
Ellett, of Monroe; J. T. Ellyson, of Monroe; John W. Fergusson, of Jefferson; 
Richard Forrester, Sr., of Jackson; J. P'oster, of Jackson; James F. Gunn, of 
Marshall; W. S. Gunn, of Clay; N. D. Hargrove, of Madison; James Hayes, 
of Marshall; John M. Higgins, of Jefferson; George J. Hooper, Jr., of Clay; 
J.J. King, of Clay; H. W. Lubbock, of Jackson; O. F. Manson, of Monroe; 
W.J. McDowell, of Monroe; James E. Phillips, of Jefferson; Andrew Pizzini, 
Jr., of Madison; S. W. Robinson, of Jackson; M. L. Straus, of Monroe; Chas. 

F. Taylor, of Madison; W. H. Tinsley, of Jackson; George W. Warren, 
of Jefferson ; Arthur W. Weisiger, of Marshall ; .Maxwell T. Clarke, of Madison. 



